Advent
by Bialy
Summary: The last day left before growing up. Matt, Near and Mello's last moments at Wammy's House Flashfiction. Chapter 2 - Near sits on his windowsill and swings his legs; ongoing.
1. The Chaos of Angels

Disclaimer: I still don't own Death Note. The lyrics are Racing Rats by The Editors.

Note: ...hi, everyone. So I'm trying to get a handle on fanfic again. I'm going to start with what I'm good at: seconds out of time. This will be a three part fanfic about Mello, Matt and Near, after L's death, as they leave Wammy's House. Each will be between 400 and 600 words long, roughly. I hope you enjoy.

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**Chapter 1**

**The Chaos of Angels**

_standing at the edge of your town_  
_with the skylight in your eyes_  
_reaching out to gods_  
_the sun says its goodbyes_

_

* * *

_

The sun is low when Mello leaves.

He has a kit bag slung over his shoulder and is wearing shoes. They pinch uncomfortably on his feet (too used to the freedom of plush carpets and hardwood floors polished to perfection) and he squints up into the dying of the light.

This day's been a long time coming, he thinks. Goodbye to soft landings (it's out into the real world now, to gravel and mud and youth hostels in Greater London).

The sky is gold and rose and it is perhaps about half past four in the afternoon. The winter yields this one bright day, this one sliver of warmth, and Mello thinks how fucking out of place it all is; the crisp snow setting against the gates, the heavy red-brick of the orphanage, and L is dead.

Nothing is ever going to be the same now.

It isn't a nice thing to know, Mello reflects. He's always been the chaos in amongst the angels, the sudden shattering of un-sound, but it is different, this, somehow. It is different – the trouble you cause, and the trouble you face. And Mello would not, could not, have ever caused a trouble like this.

He pauses at the gates. They are big things of cast iron – ornate, and once upon a time they were painted. But the paint had been cheap, and had flaked off into the tacky green of old park railings. The gates were mostly bare metal now, tarnished by snow and glinting. When he was young he used to run out these gates, right up to them, and stand and stare at the world beyond. _One day_, he would think, _one day_. That day came long ago, when he stopped listening to Roger's warnings, and wove his way into town. He ran and ran, never daring to look back, never daring to stop.

That was the day he found the cathedral. They were banned from religion, the children of the red-brick orphanage at the edge of town. They had been taught when they were very young that if the arm of flesh did fail them, it was a long way down. But when Mello found himself in the splendour of God's house, a child amongst high stone arches and stained glass, it felt like coming home.

So Mello pauses at the gates. He looks back, and he looks forward, and he marks this moment. This is the moment of stepping over – the moment of putting away childish things and turning towards the world. He stands there, in the silence of sun, in winter light and winter ice, and the frost on the branches dances and refracts the rays into a hundred different shapes. There is quiet all about him, and he discovers he is holding his breath, invisible in the moment.

He could stay here forever.

But the air in his lungs feels stale and old, and his bones ache for adventure. There's a cool, low pit of rebellion in his stomach, and there's the fiery scent of revenge upon the wind. Mello lifts his chin and stands defiant in the sunlight, silhouetted against the fast-fading of the past.

He takes one step past the gates, and it's done.

Can't go back now.


	2. The Uncrowned King

Disclaimer: Don't own. Lyrics: I Can't Stop This Feeling I've Got by Razorlight

Note: And here is Near. I had fun with this one. Enjoy. Matt will be up in a couple of days.

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**The Uncrowned King**

_the sky may fall, the sea may split_  
_you may say that isn't it_  
_  
_

* * *

Near sits on his windowsill and swings his legs. His feet don't reach the floor. He's never been tall.

It isn't usual, he thinks, for him to allow himself a frivolity like this – swinging his legs. He is normally more stationary, deposited like an abandoned pile of pyjamas on the ground. He is aware of how unassuming he looks, of how small he is, of the disinterest he engenders. He does not have fire and charisma, and he does not have quirks and intrigue. He is little and he is clever and he can see everything for what it is.

Roger told him he would stay here until he was fifteen. Near is thirteen, and knows that he will be here for just one more day.

It was inevitable that L would die, Near thinks. Kira had started the game with a whole extra deck of cards, and L had been making up ground ever since. He hadn't really had a hope. But with the foundations that L had built (and Near has a good idea what he had found, a very good idea, though it will take some more investigating), Near thinks he could probably do this.

It will take time, though. He will have to prepare.

It is a shame that Mello is gone.

Near looks around his little room. He had never had to share. That was one of the privileges – the many privileges – of being the smartest child in an orphanage of genii. He had asked to room alone, and he had been granted his request.

It never got lonely.

The room is sparsely furnished. The bed is neatly made (every morning Near gets up, climbs out of bed, and changes his pyjamas. He brushes his teeth for two minutes and fifteen seconds, he combs his hair, he makes his bed, and he goes downstairs for breakfast. Half an hour later, it is served) and the box of toys in the corner is packed away at the end of every day. His sheets are clean, crisp white, and the duvet cover has a single line of dark green running horizontally along it. The rug lies at a deliberately odd angle to the door, and looks out of place. It is Near's secret and quiet rebellion.

Behind him, the sky is grey. There had been this dazzling day of winter sun on Tuesday (the day that Mello had disappeared) and then the clouds had swooped back in, and the bright snow had started to muddy at the roadsides. If he turns around and strains his neck a little, and opens the window, he can hear traffic in the distance. Or he can imagine he can. There are tire tracks in the snow, but Near has never heard any cars, not all the way out here. Not in years now.

It seems so strange to think that this time on Saturday he'll be…well. He doesn't know, yet. But not here.

He'll know by tomorrow. He is meeting with Roger tonight. He is going to be briefed on what it is to become L. They are going to see if he is ready.

He has been ready. Near has been ready for a long time now. He's had nothing else to do, after all.


	3. The Last Best

Disclaimer: still don't own. Lyrics: Calling All Skeletons by Alkaline Trio.

Note: Here is the last chapter. This was not a long fic, I know, but it has got me thinking about a few things and a few concepts I might want to develop. So maybe I'll be getting some more out soon? I hope so. I've had fun with this, developing a different idea through each boy – independence and growing up with Mello, order and loneliness with Near, and now, Matt. I hope you enjoy.

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**The Last Best **

_i thought we were friends  
i guess it just depends who you ask  
these feelings tend to leave me  
with a hole in my chest_

* * *

Matt is alone.

Mello has been gone for some time now. He went in the middle of the day, for all the world to see, and no one stopped him. Near slipped away one night, quietly, and out of his window Matt watched Roger escorting him to a long black car parked outside the gates.

Every time Matt tries to get past the gates, someone manages to catch him and pull him back.

He isn't special like Near, or frightening like Mello. He isn't all that brilliant (good enough, though, he supposes, he's number three after all and Matt isn't about to let a credential like that slip past anyone) and he's never going to make the top grade, and it's never really bothered him until now. But now here he is, left with all the others below him, the last best boy in Wammy's House.

Well, bullshit to that.

Matt doesn't do well in circumstances like this. He likes having people around – _better_ people – because Matt is good, he knows he's good, but he's so much _better_ when he's the supplemental. When he's filling in the gaps. When's he's somebody else's second.

Mello's second, really. Matt came across the phrase 'thick as thieves' in an adventure book when he was seven. The story actually was about thieves, and the terrifying and exhilarating things they did. The cover was of the two main characters, one who was tall and willowy, and the other who was short and stout, looking back over their shoulders at a treasure room. The ceiling was caving in, and they looked scared.

But the shorter, stouter man had a strange look on his face. His lips were curled up into a half-grin, his eyes had the narrow look of a man who knows more than he's letting on. His hands clutched a caricatured swag-bag, and Matt had known, the first day he clapped eyes on that book, that the shorter thief was never going to die.

He'd read the book to the end just to find out. It left off in the middle of a huge, climactic scene – the treasure room scene – and Matt never found out if the two guys got out alive. The day after he finished the book, he met Mello.

Mello, he thought, was always going to get out alive.

Matt is a survivor. Matt is crafty, and quiet, and thoughtful, and a little bit too bulky in places. He can feel his shoulders broadening, and his hair always falls awkwardly into his eyes, and he knows he is plain. But Matt doesn't mind. Matt's always been a big believer in philosophies that start with "you are what you are" and end with "screw the rest", and so, trying to be L has never really affected him.

He misses his dad, though. Now more than ever, now Mello's gone.

He wonders what L was like. He's dead now, for sure. Everyone in the orphanage knows it. L is dead and Kira isn't and Mello and Near are gone, and what's going to happen now? Matt had determined to find out – but he was stopped, every day, at the orphanage gates.

He'll be fifteen soon enough though. This'll give him plenty of time to plan, plenty of time to get ready for the world outside. He'd always been more slow and steady, though whether or not that'll win the race here remains to be seen. But still. Nothing to do.

He sort of wishes Mello would have said goodbye, though. He knows the fate of the world's more important than their friendship, but…yeah. It would have been nice, he guesses.


End file.
